I am still looking for my platinum or gold awards from Warner Bros. Canada, as I was the first to promote Prince in the great white north (Canada).

In the October 19, 1978 edition of Al Hamilton’s African Canadian weekly newspaper Contrast, I wrote: “Warner Bros. has another Stevie Wonder in their new 18-year-old artist, Prince.

On his first Warner Bros. album, Prince did it all. He composed the music, produced the session, played the instruments, which included: drums, guitars, bass synthesizers and more…

“Prince is the youngest person to ever produce a Warner Bros. album. The album is ‘For You’ and single ‘Soft and Wet.’”

There is an African connection to Prince’s film “Purple Rain”, as Director Christopher Kirkley re-imagines Prince’s “Purple Rain” on the mother continent.

The film “Akounak Tedaiat Taha Tazoughai” (Akounak for short) is set in the Saharan city of Agadez in Niger. “Akounak is a visually sumptuous and musically thrilling movie that works splendidly with or without the ‘Purple Rain’ mythos”, according to the Dangerous Minds website.

Prince is one of our greatest artists working today

Prince was the first artist since the Beatles to simultaneously land a number one album, single and film, and he did so just at the age of 24.

He has also been heaped with praise from the one-and-only Miles Dewey Davis. I was blessed to have seen Prince perform twice during his fifth tour, first in November, 1984 at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, where I met Nelson George and Greg Tate..

I would later see Prince at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto during that year. In fact, Prince sold 17,000 tickets for his December 2, 1984 concert at Maple Leaf Gardens in less than two hours.

Tickets for the December 3rd show were gobbled up a fast as the promoter announced the second date was added.

Prince’s film “Purple Rain” grossed $65 million in North America. The album was five times platinum in Canada which represents a half million record sales.

The first single off the LP “When Doves Cry” went platinum and the singles “Let’s Go Crazy” and “Purple Rain” went gold.

Prince has serious links to Toronto, Canada. In the early 2000s he was married to Toronto resident Manuela Testolini. It was a pairing that led to Prince spending time in the great white north. He and Testolini would later split, filing for divorce in July of 2006.

Over the years, Prince has reportedly been spotted at Raptors games. Despite being a short guy, he is rumored to be quite a basketball player. He has also taken to the stage as a DJ.

He also recorded his “Musicology” album in Toronto and Mississauga.

Prince has previously said that he loves Toronto, telling The Canadian Press that he liked the variety of people living in the “cosmopolitan” city. “It’s a real melting pot in every sense of the word,” he said in April, 2004.

“There are all sorts of different kinds of people everywhere you go in Toronto. There are all sorts of great music, great restaurants, and great night spots.”

Prince also has a special relationship with Larry Graham, uncle of Toronto’s own Drake. Graham, before making it on his own, was a member of Sly and the Family Stone, where he “added a little bottom.” He sang and played the bass and other instruments.

Graham was credited with introducing Prince to the Jehovah’s Witness religion and has appeared with Prince at various international venues.

Prince recorded a song called “Baltimore”

Prince joined many American-born African celebrities in helping Spike Lee complete his 1992 “Malcolm X” film. Lee has stated that if he hadn’t been financially rescued by those celebrities, he would have been forced to shut down post-production.

In early 2015, Prince recorded a song called “Baltimore” and called for people who went to his concert in that city to wear gray in tribute to Freddie Gray, an African man of Baltimore residence who was killed by police there.

CNN reported that his promotional materials stated: “Wear something gray in remembrance of Freddie Gray, who died from severe spinal injuries after his arrest last month.”

Prince has no problem with controversy. For better or worse, he has a special relationship with Cornell West and Tavis Smiley.

He told Smiley on his PBS television show that he was moved after seeing “Unforgivable Blackness” a documentary about Jack Johnson. Johnson was the first African born in America to be heavyweight boxing champion.

Prince’s “Dreamer” captures feelings of many in the Movement

One of Prince’s songs, “Dreamer” captures the feelings of many of us in the African Liberation Movement.

The song expresses: “I was born, raised on a slave plantation in the United States of the red, white and blue. Never knew that I was different till Dr. King was on a balcony lyin’ in a bloody pool.”

Prince’s career proves that one does not have to sell right out to impact Africa, Africans and the world.

Norman (Otis) Richmond, aka Jalali, was born in Arcadia, Louisiana, and grew up in Los Angeles. He left Los Angles after refusing to fight in Viet Nam because he felt that, like the Vietnamese, Africans in the United States were colonial subjects. Jalali is producer/host for the Diasporic Music show on UhuruRadio.com every Sunday at 2pm ET. His column Diasporic Music appears monthly in The Burning Spear newspaper. He can be contacted Norman.o.richmond@gmail.com

NB: this text is copyrighted, and only limited excerpting with full attribution is permitted. For licensing and reproduction permissions, please contact Norman Otis Richmond at normanotisrichmond@gmail.com.

“I believe I’m going to die doing the things I was born to do. I believe I’m going to die high off the people. I believe I’m going to die a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle.”

December 4th 2015 marks the 46th Anniversary of the assassinations of Fred Hampton, the Chairman of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party and Mark Clark of the Peoria Ill. Chapter. Unfortunately, Hampton’s predication came true.

The story of the murders of Hampton and Clark can be found in a new volume “The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther”, by Jeffrey Haas. It was published in 2009 This work is published by Lawrence Hill Books.

Hampton had made one of his last speeches in Regina, Sask. only a week earlier. This was Hampton only visit outside the United States. He came to the University of Regina and spoke to students and the labour movement.

Ironically, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) made only one visit to Canada. He did an interview with the CBC and visited the home of Austin and Betty Clarke on Asquith Street.

Hampton said he came to Canada to garner support for Chairman Bobby Seale. He also was quoted in an interview saying, “I think also that we’ll see a lot more repression here in Canada. I think that with a lot more people waking up, there’ll be more repression — of Indians and of all progressive forces in Canada.”

This quote is from the Prairie Fire, Regina, Sask., a progressive Regina weekly newspaper that was printed from 1969 until 1971. The Praire Fire devoted a great deal of ink to Hampton.

The Nov. 25-Dec. 2 , 1969 issue ran an editorial about

how Hampton and two other BPP members were harassed by Canadian Immigration officials, discussed in the House of Commons and severely attacked by the Leader Post , a Regina daily on its editorial page.

In the same issue of the Praire Fire an article, “Panthers Outline Program” an exclusive was granted to the publication.

DON’T MOURN – ORGANIZE! , a quote from the great Joe Hill a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies) jumped out at you from the pages of Praire Fire.

The editorial ended with this quote, “Chairman Fred Hampton’s name now joins the list of the many people who have died in fighting for the rights of their people.

The last article, “In Memory Of Fred Hampton” discussed a memorial torchlight parade for Hampton. The story ended with a powerful quote from Labour, “George Smith, president of the Regina Labour Council, expressed his solidarity with the Panthers, especially their efforts to put socialism into practice with hot breakfast programs and free medical clinics.

“He said many people in Canada and U.S. are left to die slow deaths by malnutrition and poverty, and that these deaths are just as much the result of our social system as deaths by gunfire which Blacks and Indians meet every day.”

“Many more will die before the fight is won, but the struggle for a more progressive social system will continue”.

In 1999 the African Liberation Month Coalition and CKLN-FM 88.1 FM organized a screening of the 1971 film “The Murder of FredHampton” at the Bloor Cinema.

The inspiration came from Barry Lipton was in Regina, Sask. When Hampton spoke Lipton was one of the organizers of the Sask. event. Carm, Paul and their father Corrado made the Bloor Cinema available to us for more than a reasonable price which solved the venue question.

Liam Lacey an old friend of mine did a half a page article on the film in the Globe and Mail. This did nothing but help us fill the place. Akua Njeri (FredHampton’s wife) supplied the film and we were in business.

It was Hampton who put forth the concept of the Rainbow Coalition first. The concept was later picked up and popularized by Jesse Jackson.

Njeri pointed out in her book, “My Life With The Black Panther Party”, Fred Hampton was the originator of the concept of the Rainbow Coalition. He was the first person to come up with that concept in 1969.

That was an effort to educate and politicize other poor and oppressed people throughout this world.

He worked with and attempted to politicize the Young Patriots organization, which was a group of Appalachian whites in the near north area of Chicago. He was politicizing them and organizing them to recognize the leadership of the black revolution, the vanguard party, the Black Panther Party, and to work in their communities against this huge monster we had to deal with, which is racism.”

Hampton continues to inspire singers, players of instruments and hip hop artists. Ernest Dawkins recorded “A Black Op’era” dedicated to Chairman Fred Hampton live in Paris on January 13, 2006.

Njeri and Hampton Jr. were honoured guests at the Sons d’hiver festival when this piece was recorded. Hampton is sampled heavy by dead prez on their debut CD, “Let’s Get Free”. M1 and Stick man are currently working with Fred Hampton Jr.

Hampton once opined , “If you’re afraid of socialism you are afraid of yourself”. The vision of Hampton and Clark and the progressive forces around the world are alive and well in Latin America.

Norman (Otis) Richmond, aka Jalali, was born in Arcadia, Louisiana, and grew up in Los Angeles. He left Los Angles after refusing to fight in Viet Nam because he felt that, like the Vietnamese, Africans in the United States were colonial subjects. Jalali is producer/host for the Diasporic Music show on UhuruRadio.com every Sunday at 2pm ET. His column Diasporic Music appears monthly in The Burning Spear newspaper. He can be contacted Norman.o.richmond@gmail.com

NB: this text is copyrighted, and only limited excerpting with full attribution is permitted. For licensing and reproduction permissions, please contact Norman Otis Richmond at normanotisrichmond@gmail.com.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel maintains that the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald is a one-off situation. This is an outright lie.
Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke shot McDonald 16 times. Police killing African men and women are as American as apple pie and the FBI. It is as Chicago as Michael Jordon and Scottie Pippen.

McDonald’s shooting was captured on video but the police kept it secret. It took 400 days for Van Dyke to be indicted. This is the first time in three decades a Chicago policeman has been indicted for an on-duty shooting of a Black person.

Police officers stood around, not helping the youth, seemingly securing the scene from an invisible threat. This is clear from viewing the video.

Historically, police have been seen as an occupying force in the African community in the U.S. Africans in America are colonized, just as in French-occupied Algeria, British Kenya or the Boers’ South Africa. Black people are an internal colony (a nation within a nation).

In fact, the U.S. is a prison of nations. Huey Newton and Bobby Seale created the Black Panther Party for Self Defence in Oakland because of police brutality. The role of police in Oakland was to protect the colonizer.

One of the most famous incidents of police misconduct was the 1969 murder of Fred Hampton. Ironically, the only place Hampton, 21, visited outside the U.S. was the University of Saskatchewan weeks before his murder.

According to the U.K.’s Guardian, “The arm of government that investigates police misconduct here in Chicago, the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), has found only one police shooting in the past five years to be ‘not justified’. This leaves all the others, nearly 400 shootings, to be considered ‘justified’. And it leaves the impression that police here sparkle with unicorn magic.”

Author Barbara Ransby puts it thusly: “The We Charge Genocide group here in Chicago says that, in the Jim Crow era, the rope was a symbol of lynching and today it is a police bullet.”

She talked about some of past events that shape the relationship between Chi Town’s African population and the police: The 2012 murder of Rekia Boyd, never forgotten by Black folks in Chicago. Less than 20 of its officers in Chicago have received crisis intervention training. In 1969 Toronto’s own Gary Freeman shot Chicago policeman Terrence Knox three times. Freeman said he was defending himself.

Chicago is where John Birch, former police supervisor, carried out systematic torture of young Black men, including electro-shocking genitals and putting plastic bags over the heads of people they were trying to coerce into confessions. All of this has now been documented. The Windy City is also a place that demonstrates brown skin representing white power. The mayor’s State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez is a Chicago-born Latino.

Africans born in the U.S. should be grateful to the international community for championing their plight.

Many like Dr. Gerald Horne who recently published, “Confronting Black Jacobins: The United States, the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic” says that international support has helped people who are darker than blue stay alive in the Empire called the United States.

Africans inside the U.S. have a history of charging the United States with genocide. America has never been “the land of the free and the home of the brave” to its Black population. It has been “the land of the tree and the home of the slave,” David Walker wrote in his 1829 Appeal crying about crimes against Africans in America and the world.

Africans inside the Communists Party USA and other progressives published “We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People”’ in 1951.

Others like W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, William L. Paterson, Claudia Jones and Charlotta Bass supported the movement. Paterson’s father was born in St. Vincent, Jones hailed from Trinidad and Tobago.

The International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) has launched a petition to be presented to the UN charging the American government with genocide against African people in the U.S.

To paraphrase Frederick Douglas, without struggle there cannot be progress.

NB: this text is copyrighted, and only limited excerpting with full attribution is permitted. For licensing and reproduction permissions, please contact Norman Otis Richmond at normanotisrichmond@gmail.com.

After many years of phone conversations, emails and messages from relatives and friends I finally met Boots Riley. Riley is the face of the hip-hop crew, the Coup, along with Pam “The Funktress,” who was unable to make the trip to Toronto for the Coup’s recent debut performance here at the Reverb.

Despite driving himself, a three piece band and one back up vocalist/rapper, Riley and crew were more than able to please the crowd as they breezed though tracks from their catalogue of CDs, which includesParty Music, Steal This Album, and Genocide & Juice. They also performedseveral tracks from their forthcoming CD, Picka Bigger Weapon. “MyFavorite Mutiny” and “Baby Let’s Make a Baby” were well received by theToronto crowd. “My Favorite Mutiny,” which features Black Thought (from the Roots) and Talib Kweli, heated up the spot. “Me & Jesus The Pimp In A79 Granada Last Night” and other tracks rocked the house.

However, the real crowd pleaser was Boots a cappella rendition of “TheUnderdog.” The group was forced to do an encore and they pleased their audience with “Ghetto Manifesto” and “Wear Clean Draws” which Boots dedicated to his daughter. The Coup’s band sounded like Larry Graham (of the group Sly & The Family Stone) on bass, Jimi Hendrix (world’s most influential guitarist) on guitar, and Earl Young (MFSB) on drums. The musicians in the Coup band are Quebec Jackson, Drums; Riccol Johnson,Bass; and Steve Wyreman, Guitar. Silk-E is the vocalist/rapper with the group.

We caught up with Riley before the performance. The interview was conducted as Riley drove himself to his hotel in Mississauga to come back and do his show. The Coup’s new CD Picka Bigger Weapon was discussed. The new album features a wide range of artists like Jello Biafra, Dead Prez, and members from the Parliament and the Gap Band. Riley spoke to us about everything from Hip Hop and politics to Katrina and Kanye West to the case of Crip co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams.

Williams is The San Quentin inmate who was nominated for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize by a member of the Swiss Parliament. Williams, now 47, was sentenced to death in 1981 for four robbery-related murders.

The Crips, a notorious youth street organization (gang), which he and a friend started in South Central Los Angeles in 1971, spread to cities throughout the United States and Canada. Copycat gangs would soon crop up in South Africa and Switzerland. Williams experienced a reawakening in1993 and has since attempted to turn his life around. He’s written Tookie Speaks Out Against Gang Violence, a series of eight readers aimed at urban youth, and Life in Prison, a biography detailing the isolation and despair of death row. He has done this in collaboration with his editor, Barbara Cottman Becnel, detailing the isolation and despair of death row.

The Sundance and Cannes Festival recognized ‘Redemption’, 2004 TV movie filmed in Toronto, Canada and based on William’s life story featured a stellar cast, including Jamie Foxx starring as the former Crips gang leader, ‘Thin Line Between Love And Hate’ actress Lynn Whitfield playing the co-author of William’s books Barbara Becnel, and Canadian Hip-Hop forefather Maestro as former Crips lieutenant turned “Tookie Protocol ForPeace” ambassador.

Riley said that the climate is such that the right-wing Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, could go ahead with December 13 the execution of Williams. Jamie Foxx, Danny Glover and Snoop Dogg have all called for Williams not to be executed.

Riley was excited that Melvin Van Peeples wants to produce the Coup’s next video. He says Van Peebles heard the track “We Are The One’s” and loved the story, adding that Van Peebles, father of Mario Van Peebles, best known as the director of Sweet Sweetback’s Baad Asssss Song, was so impressed that he agreed not to be too rigid on the price of production.

This is not the first time that a successful Hollywood personality has worked with the Coup. Roger Guenveur Smith who has acted in most of SpikeLee’s films produced Me And Jesus The Pimp In A 79 Granada Last Night.Back in 1999 the African Liberation Month Coalition and CKLN-FM 88.1screened the video of Me and Jesus the Pimp In A 79 Granada Last Night along with the Murder of Fred Hampton.

Riley feels we cannot trust the system because, at its core, it’s designed to exploit people. Over the past few years, U.S. imperialism has upped the ante, he says, adding that we need to do is be strategic and target companies and their subsidiaries that do business or have any sort of connection to the war effort. We need to shut them down, he says.

The Chicago-born rapper said that he is impressed the many of the new flock of hip hop artists. He spoke about the fact that while 50 Cent maybe hot at the moment, in reality he is not selling tons of units. Riley believes it is in the interest of the system to promote the “Get Rich OrDie Tryin’” school of thought. According to Riley artists like dead prez,Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Common and Kanye West are examples of the new breed of hip hop.

NB: this text is copyrighted, and only limited excerpting with full attribution is permitted. For licensing and reproduction permissions, please contact Norman Otis Richmond at normanotisrichmond@gmail.com.

]]>https://normanotisrichmond.wordpress.com/2015/12/10/the-coup-in-canada/feed/0TheCoupnormanotisrichmondTheCoupNorman Otis Richmond Interviews Youssou N’Dour 1987https://normanotisrichmond.wordpress.com/2015/11/12/norman-otis-richmond-interviews-youssou-ndour-1987/
https://normanotisrichmond.wordpress.com/2015/11/12/norman-otis-richmond-interviews-youssou-ndour-1987/#commentsThu, 12 Nov 2015 23:06:18 +0000http://normanotisrichmond.wordpress.com/?p=330This was the first interview that Youssou N’Dour granted to a Black journalist in the Western Hemisphere.

The Major League Baseball playoffs are in full swing. “Thanks” to imperialism Africans in the Western Hemisphere were involved in both baseball and cricket.

Africans in the U.S. and Latin America, South America and the Dutch Caribbean played baseball and those from the former British West Indies played cricket.

My father Norman Lee Richmond was a serious baseball man. For some reason he was fascinated with first base and wanted me to play that position. However, I told him I wanted to play centre field like Willie Mays, the “Say Hey Kid”.

I had two problems. Number one was Bobby Tolan and number two was Willie Crawford. Both Tolan and Crawford attended the same junior and senior high schools as me, Thomas Edison Jr. High and John C. Fremont High School. Tolan and Crawford wanted to play the same position.

While I once defeated Crawford in a 50-yard dash on Edison’s schoolyard and ran on the same relay team with him in the Junior Olympics at the Los Angeles (Cilium) he and Tolan were far better hitters.

As a result I started running the 120 low hurdles but gave them up when a beautiful sister heard me singing and I no longer had to worry about Crawford or Tolan.

Tolan is a former centre and right fielder in Major League Baseball. Los Angeles-born Tolan played for the St. Louis Cardinals (1965-68), Cincinnati Reds, San Diego Padres, Philadelphia Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates.

His son Robbie Tolan was on the way to playing in the major league until Jeffery Cotton shot him in 2008. A jury later acquitted Cotton. Tolan was unarmed.

Willie Crawford was born in Los Angeles in 1946 and died in 2004. He was a Major League Baseball outfielder who played with Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals, Houston Astros and Oakland Athletics.

Crawford was a great all-around athlete at Fremont High School in Los Angeles. He was all-city in both football (1963) and baseball. With 9.7 speed in 100 yards and was sought after by colleges to play football. But long-time Dodger Tommy Lasorda, then a scout, signed Crawford for the Dodgers for $100,000 two days after he graduated from high school in 1964.

I also have links with major cricket players. Esmond Kentish, born Nov. 21, 1916, who joined the ancestors on June 10, 2011, was my father-in-law. Kentish was a Caribbean cricketer who played in two Tests from 1948 to 1954.

He was born in Cornwall Mountain, Westmoreland, Jamaica. At the time of his death he was the oldest living West Indian Test cricketer, and the fourth oldest Test cricketer from any country.

According to Dawn, a Pakistani newspaper, “In his professional life he was the first Black general manager of the Bank of Jamaica and was conferred with the Order of Distinction for services to the bank.”

Kentish played for Oxford University, winning a Blue at 39, and Jamaica, making his West Indies debut in the fourth test against Gubby Allen’s England side at his home ground Sabina Park in 1948. He was overlooked for the next six years before earning a recall for the first test against Len Hutton’s England side in 1954 at Sabina Park.

After retiring as a player, Kentish went on to become a director of the WICB and a life member of the Jamaica Cricket Association. He also managed the West Indies team in 1973 and 1975.

The first time I met Mr. Kentish was in 1986. I was married to his daughter Kathleen Yvonne Kentish. We listened to Jamaican radio and discussed African, African American and Caribbean history. Free I, who died with Wolde Semayat (Peter Tosh) was on the radio. Free I was calling for a national holiday for Marcus Garvey and Mr. Kentish did not agree.

His position was there were too many holidays in August. My position was that, unlike Jamaica’s other national sheroes / heroes (Nanny of the Maroons), Samuel Sharpe, George William Gordon, Paul Bogle, Norman Washington Manley and Sir Alexander Bustamante, Garvey was internationally known.

John Henrik Clarke pointed out, “The King of Swaziland later told Mrs. Marcus Garvey that he knew the names of only two Black men in the Western world: the boxer Jack Johnson and Marcus Garvey.”

Norman (Otis) Richmond, aka Jalali, was born in Arcadia, Louisiana, and grew up in Los Angeles. He left Los Angles after refusing to fight in Viet Nam because he felt that, like the Vietnamese, Africans in the United States were colonial subjects. Jalali is producer/host for the Diasporic Music show on UhuruRadio.com every Sunday at 2pm ET. Hiscolumn Diasporic Music appears monthly in The Burning Spear newspaper.

NB: this text is copyrighted, and only limited excerpting with full attribution is permitted. For licensing and reproduction permissions, please contact Norman Otis Richmond at normanotisrichmond@gmail.com.

“If Bunchy had been on the same plantation as Nat Turner you can believe he would have rode with Nat Turner. That’s the type of person Bunchy was.” Kumasi NBC television has resurrected Al Prentice “Bunchy” Carter” with a new series called ‘Aquarius’. The imperialist media has brought back both Carter and Charles Manson. Carter was an iconic black revolutionary from Los Angeles. Manson was a cold-blooded serial killer who led the Manson Family that murdered many in California. Somehow Hollyweird has united these two polar opposites for television. It is not that weird when we understand that these forces are part of the state whose job it is to keep Africa, Africans and all oppressed people confused.

Gerald Horne whose upcoming volume is “Confronting Black Jacobins: The U.S. the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic” taught Carter’s daughter Danon at the University of California, Santa Barbara and has written extensively on Hollywood. Horne says Hollywood has done a number on Africans in America from “Birth of a Nation” to “Gone With The Wind” depicting black women as mammies, servants and sex objects. Linden Beckford, Jr. a graduate of Grambling University is currently writing a biography of Carter Unlike Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver and George Jackson, Carter has almost been forgotten from the history of Africans in America except for die hards. Yes, the Fugees (Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill, and Pras Michel) mention Carter on the 1996 soundtrack film “When We Were Kings” about the famous”Rumble in the Jungle” heavyweight championship match between MuhammadAli and George Foreman which took place in 1974. And yes M-1 and Stickman (dead prez) did “B.I.G. respect” a song on their Mix tape “Turn off the Radio’ that mentions Carter.

Who were Carter and John Huggins and why are they important for the 21st Century? Carter was assassinated on January 17th 1967 along with John Huggins (February 11, 1945 – January 17, 1969) at Campbell Hall at UCLA in Los Angeles.

It is a tragic coincidence in history that eight years before Carter and Huggins joined the ancestors the first democratically elected president of the Congo, Patrice Emery Lumumba, Joseph Okito, vice-president of the Senate and Maurice Mpolo sports and youth minister were killed by an unholy alliance of the CIA, Belgian imperialism, and other agents of imperialism headed by Mobuto Sese SekoNgbenduWaZaBanga aka Colonel Joseph Mobuto on January 17, 1961.

Carter and Huggins were gunned down by members of the cultural nationalist US Organization. An FBI memo dated November 29, 1968 described a letter that the Los Angeles FBI office intended to mail to the Black Panther Party office. This letter, which was made to appear as if it had come from the US Organization, described fictitious plans by US to ambush BPP members. The FBI memo stated that “It is hoped this counterintelligence measure will result in an ‘US’ and BPP vendetta.

Many feel that the leader of US, Ron Karenga was working for the other side. An article in the Wall Street Journal described Karenga as a thriving businessman-specializing in gas stations – who maintained close ties to eastern Rockefeller family and L.A’s Mayor. Sam Yorty pointed out Michael Newton in the volume, “Bitter Grain:Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party”. The Wall Street Journal article said, “Afew weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King …Mr. Karenga slipped into Sacramento for a private chat with Governor Reagan, at the governor’s request. The black nationalist also met clandestinely with Los Angeles police chief Thomas Reddin after Mr. King was killed.”

At that moment in history many cultural nationalist maintained that the cultural revolution must take place before a political one could proceed. Huey P. Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party countered with the view that, “We believe that culture itself will not liberate us. We’re going to need some stronger stuff.”

The Black Panther Party led by Newton and Bobby Seale was like the African National Congress of South Africa (ANC). It was an anti-imperialist alliance; many like Carter embraced revolutionary nationalism while others like Newton, George Jackson and Fred Hampton took a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist {MLM} position. Hampton openly said he was fighting for socialism leading to communism.

Carter was a firm supporter of the Native American struggle. It was Carter who changed Elmer Pratt into Geronimo ji-Jaga Pratt (September 13, 1947- June 2, 2011) after the great Native American warrior.

Geronimo “the one who yawns”; (June 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a prominent Apache leader who fought against Mexico and Arizona for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. Geronimo replaced Carter as the Deputy Minister of Defense of the Southern California Chapter of the BPP after Carter was taken out. Carter left a memo saying his wish was for Geronimo to replace him.

While not an anticommunist, before joining the Party Carter was recruited by Raymond “Maasi”Hewitt to a Maoist study group called the Red Guard. I was a part of the same group however; Carter came in after I left Los Angeles. Carter was influenced by Jean-Jacquesm Dessalines of Haiti and DedanKimathi of the Land and Freedom Army (so-called Mau Mau). The Los Angeles Chapter under Bunchyleadership required that members take the Mau Mau Oath.

Here is the Mau Mau Oath
“I speak the truth and vow before God
And before this movement.
The movement of Unity,
The Unity which is put to the test
The Unity that is mocked with the name of “Mau Mau.
That I shall go forward to fight for the land,
The lands of Kirinyaga that we cultivated.
The lands which were taken by the Europeans
And if I fail to do this
May this oath kill me
May this seven kill me,
May this meat kill me”

Carter and a small segment of people who lived in my area of Los Angeles had an international world view. He was a legendary figure in my neighborhood. After he was released from prison he attended Los Angeles City College. Carter was my senior and I didn’t meet him until he was released from jail. He and others like Sigidi Abdullah, (S.O.S Band), “Take Your Time (Do It Right)”, Rhongea Southern (now Daar Malik El-Bey) who worked closely with Abdullah, Earl Randall, who went on to work with Willie Mitchell at Hi Records and wrote Al Green’s “God Bless Our Love”, Fred Goree who became MasaiKarega enyatta and a DJ on WCHB 1440AM in Detroit went to L.A.C.C. at the same time. Sigidi told me that Carter asked him to organize a talent show at L.A.C.C. I remeber singing the Spinners, “I’ll Always Love You” at this event. El-Bey was my guitarist.

Carter’s political consciousness was raised before he joined the Black Panther Party. According to Kumasi, who Huey P. Newton ask to replace Carter as the leader of the Southern California Chapter of the BPP talked to me about the L.A. legend. Says Kumasi, “When Malcolm X first came to Los Angeles he built the first outpost right there in our neighborhood. The Mosque (Temple 27) itself was close to us and all of us had visited the Mosque. As a matter of fact, Bunchy, nd many of the Renegade Slausons (Bunchy had his own set of Slausons inside the Slausons) were the first youth Fruit of Islam (FOI) in L.A. Carter was only 15 years old at that moment of history.

Carter was a 20th Century Renaissance man. He was great at many things and was a poet, and a singer, Elaine Brown has written that many Panthers sang together. “John (Huggins) sang bass, to my contralto and Bunchy’s falsetto”, he was also a great dancer. David Hilliard maintains that if it were not for racism Carter may have become an Olympic swimmer. Brown says while all this is true Carter was first and foremost a revolutionary. This is extraordinary if you consider that Carter suffered a childhood bout of polio, and moved to Southern Central L.A., where his mother Nola Carter enrolled him in a “therapeutic” dance class.

Carter’s Louisiana-born mother is still in the land of the living at the time of this writing. She is almost a century old and has lost two sons. Arthur Morris, Carter’s older step brother who acted as Carter’s bodyguard. Morris was the first member of the BPP to lose his life. He was killed in March of 1968. Little Bobby Hutton (who was influenced by Carter was killed on April 6, 1968]. Her youngest son Kenneth Fati Carter is currently locked down in Pelican Bay Prison in California.

Raymond Nat Turner’s, (Black Agenda Report’s poet-in-residence] mother, Caffee Greene, hired Carter to work at the Teen Post in Los Angeles. Greene first hired Raymond “Maasi” Hewitt who was replaced by Carter.It was at the Teen Post that I first heard Eldridge Cleaver speak. Cleaver and Carter were both Nation of Islam Ministers in prison. Turner saw the cultural side of Carter. Says Turner, “Yeah, I heard Bunchy sing Stevie’s “I’m Wondering” and “I Was Made to Love her” and I used to hear Tommy (Lewis) play piano at the Teen Post my mom directed.’ He continued “It was also fun to watch Bunchy dance—Philly Dog, Jerk & Twine…a lil’ ‘Bitter Dog’ with the Philly Dog ever once in a while… “Bebop Santa from the Cool North Pole”

“Black Mother” were also great to hear.” Tommy Lewis, Robert Lawrence and Steve Bartholomew were murdered by the Los Angeles police at a service station on August 25, 1968.

Kumasi opines that Carter and George Jackson were like Henri Christophe and Jean-Jacques Dessalines. While they were well-versed in history, revolutionary theory and current events both were soldiers ready to take to the battlefield. Carter made a contribution to Africa, Africans and oppressed humanity. We should remember him every s October 12th.

Norman (Otis) Richmond, aka Jalali, was born in Arcadia, Louisiana, and grew up in Los Angeles. He left Los Angles after refusing to fight in Viet Nam because he felt that, like the Vietnamese, Africans in the United States were colonial subjects. Jalali is producer/host for the Diasporic Music show on UhuruRadio.com every Sunday at 2pm ET. Hiscolumn Diasporic Music appears monthly in The Burning Spear newspaper.

NB: this text is copyrighted, and only limited excerpting with full attribution is permitted. For licensing and reproduction permissions, please contact Norman Otis Richmond at normanotisrichmond@gmail.com.

“George Clinton aka Dr. Funkenstein alias The Long Head Sucker is about sex, drugs and funk & roll.” Clinton is much more, for sure. He is a visionary who, as Nelson George has pointed out, “Happens to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of pop music, from doo wop to hip­hop.”

Clinton’s new memoir, “Brothas Be, Yo Like: Ain’t That Kinda Hard On You?” is about his struggle to recoup the money that has been ripped off from him and members of Parliament/Funkadelic by the avaricious business world.

Clinton’s memoir is a serious critique of the recording industry. In interviews Clinton tells everyone to read his book from page 379 on. It is the reason he wrote this volume.

He goes into great detail about how he and his band members have been picked clean by the business. Says Clinton, “The total amounts left behind are paltry when they should have been a hundred or two hundred thousand dollars a year minimum.

You’re talking about millions of records sold, in four different formats (vinyl, cassette, CD and download) and then beyond that all the licensing and sampling.”Many of these players have international connections.

George Clinton has Canadian connections

Clinton has a Toronto, Canada connection. He discusses his Canadian links many times in his memoir.

He grew up in Newark, New Jersey but spent most of his time in Plainfield, New Jersey where he first worked in the Silk Palace, a barbershop he eventually owned.

He used to fry, dye and slick to the side the hair of Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson. He also lists Patti LaBelle as one of his former clients.

Before the funk there was doo wop and Clinton was first moved by “Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers.”

Frankie Lymon was Michael Jackson fifteen years before the real Michael Jackson. Lymon inspired Clinton’s group, which became the Parliaments, named for the cigarettes.

Vocal groups were named after cigarettes and cars in the 1950s. Clinton named his singing group the Parliaments after the cancer stick. Ray Davis, Clarence “Fuzzy” Haskins, Calvin Simon and Clinton were the line­up of the group. The group was formed in Newark in the 1950s.

Clinton named his singing group the Parliaments after the cancer stick. Ray Davis,Clarence “Fuzzy” Haskins, Calvin Simon and Clinton were the line­up of the group. The group was formed in Newark in the 1950s.

Clinton also sent the second wave of Funkadelic (Cordell “Boogie” Mosson and Garry Shider) to warm up in the bullpen in Toronto.

Says Clinton, “…We needed a futile place for them to play and evolve and, just as important, a safe place for them to escape a drug and crime scene in Plainfield that was getting worse by the minute.”

One of the reasons Clinton has a soft spot for Canada is because of the radio station CKLW. CKLW was a 50,000 watt station which held sway over much of the upper Midwest. This Windsor, Ontario, Canada radio station CKLW helped propel the Parliaments single (I Wanna Testify) to hitsville, in 1967.

Clinton would later meet Ron Scribner, a Euro­Canadian and a partner of Ronnie Hawkins, who was a member of the Band that backed Bob Dylan on his first electric tour. He ran a Toronto agency that managed the Guess Who and other high profile Canadian acts.

Clinton brought folks from New Jersey to Bombay together

The Funk man found other former folks from New Jersey like Dianne Brooks in Toronto when he arrived. Brooks joined the ancestors on April 29, 2005 in Toronto.

Clinton also recruited Prakash John, an Indo­Canadian who was born in Bombay. John worked with Parliament/Funkadelic on the albums ‘Chocolate City’ and ‘America Eats Its Young’ while sharing bass playing duties with William “Bootsy” Collins on tour.

Black power for black people

While I admire Clinton’s cultural contribution, drive, leadership and entrepreneurial skills his politics demonstrate why politics must be in the front of our struggle for world African Liberation.

Says Clinton “I was never a huge fan of the Black Power movement, I admired their aims,but I was more about dogs than dogma. I wasn’t likely to get into a shootout with Black Panthers and Samba Wachanga (the military unit of the US organization) and I sure as shit wasn’t going to get caught in the crossfire.”

Clinton should understand that Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party were rightwhen they called for “Power to the People” and “Black Power for Black People.” Despitehis skepticism. . . he has experienced what most Africans in America have experienced.

In 1967 the Parliaments were topping the charts with “I Wanna Testify.” They were still dogged by the State. Clinton has the final words. “In fact, we were in New Jersey for the Irvington riots. Traffic was snarled and we had to walk despite the heat.

We had just bought these new suits, and when we ran into the police blockage, the officers made us put our jackets on the ground, where they stomped on them to see if we had weapons.”

Nuff Said!

Norman Richmond can be contacted Norman.o.richmond@gmail.com

Norman (Otis) Richmond aka Jalali is the producer/host of Saturday Morning Live (SML) formally on CKLN and Radio Regent, and Diasporic Music on Uhuru Radio. Diasporic Music on Uhuru Radio can be heard every two weeks on Uhuru Radio.http://uhurunews.com/radio/show?show_id=dm

NB: this text is copyrighted, and only limited excerpting with full attribution is permitted. For licensing and reproduction permissions, please contact Norman Otis Richmond at normanotisrichmond@gmail.com.

Huey P. Newton was murdered 20 years ago in Oakland, California during the month of August. Because Black freedom fighters like George and Jonathan Jackson, Khatari Gaulden and others lost their lives during this month, revolutionaries inside the California prison system have deemed it Black August.

It is August 22, 1989 at about 8:30 a.m. Gwen Johnston, the co-owner of Third World Books and Crafts (Toronto’s first African Canadian owned bookstore) phones me. The news is shocking, dreadful even. Mrs. Johnston is in tears stating, “Otis they have killed Huey”.

Mrs. Johnston and her husband Lennie were huge supporters of Newton, the Black Panther Party and the struggle for African and human liberation.

When Newton returned to the United States after his exile in revolutionary Cuba in 1977 he first landed in Toronto. He was detained in Brampton, Ontario and was represented by the progressive Euro-Canadian lawyer, Paul Copeland. Toronto’s African community supported Newton and the Panthers had several chapters in this county.

Toronto’s African community was represented by Owen Sankara Leach, Lennox Farrell, the late Sharona Hall, Mitch Holder, Bryan Hyman, Cikiah Thomas and others at the Brampton courthouse. It was covered by the Toronto dailies and even was discussed by Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News.

Spider Jones discusses his brief tenure with the Black Panther Party in his autobiography “Out of the Darkness: The Spider Jones Story”.

Another Jones, Rocky created a Black Panther Party chapter in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Whatever his shortcomings and there were many, Newton led many of us ideologically. For a brief moment in the history of Africans in America Newton was” the tallest tree in the forest”.

Malcolm X was the first national leader in the African community in the United States to oppose the war in Vietnam. Dr. Martin Luther King later followed Malcolm’s lead on this issue; Newton took it to the next limit. He offered troops to fight on the side of the North Vietnamese. In 1970, when was released from prison in California, his first act was to offer troops to fight in Vietnam on the side of the Vietnamese people.

On August 29, 1970 Newton wrote “In the spirit of international revolutionary solidarity the Black Panther Party hereby offers to the National Liberation Front and Provisional revolutionary Government of South Vietnam an undetermined number of troops to assist you in your fight against American imperialism. It is appropriate for the Black Panther Party to take this action at this time in recognition of the fact that your struggle is also our struggle, for we recognize that our common enemy is the American imperialist who is the leader of international bourgeois domination.”

Newton also raised the questions of the liberation of women and even gays. At that time in our history this was not fashionable.

Nationalists, Pan-Africanist and even some socialist formations did not wish to touch the hot potato of gay rights. Newton did. He was the bold one. His speech given on August 15, 1970 created a firestorm in the African liberation movement. At that time I did not support Newton’s thoughts on the issue of gays and lesbians.

Newton said: “We should be careful about using those terms that might turn our friends off. The terms ‘faggot’ and ‘punk’ should be deleted from our vocabulary and, especially, we should not attach names normally designed for homosexuals to men who are enemies of the people. Homosexuals are not enemies of the people. We should try to form a working coalition with the gay liberation and women’s liberation groups. We must always handle social forces in the most appropriate manner.”

Newton was born in Oak Grove, Louisiana on February 17, 1942.

Louisiana has always been a problem for the ruling circle in the United States. Queen Mother Moore, Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter, Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt, Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) and Newton all hail from Louisiana.

Queen Mother Moore from New Iberia, Carter from Shreveport, Geronimo from Morgan City, Imam Al-Amin from Baton Rouge and Newton from Oak Grove.

There were 74 chapters of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL) in Louisiana alone.

In the 1950s and 1960s the militant Deacons for Defense sprang up in the pecan state. Jesse Jackson won the primaries for the Democratic Party in 1984 and 1988. Barack Hussein Obama, a true African American rode a wave of black support to victory in Louisiana.

The state has also produced its share of sell-outs, buffoons and idiots.

As we commemorate the 30th Anniversary of Black August and the 20th anniversary of Newton joining the ancestors we should remember the words of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Says Mumia: “Huey was, it must be said, no godling, no saint. He was, however, intensely human, curious, acutely brilliant, a lover of the world’s children, an implacable foe of all the world’s oppressors.”

Norman Richmond can be contacted Norman.o.richmond@gmail.com

Norman (Otis) Richmond aka Jalali is the producer/host of Saturday Morning Live (SML) formally on CKLN and Radio Regent, and Diasporic Music on Uhuru Radio. Diasporic Music on Uhuru Radio can be heard every two weeks on Uhuru Radio.http://uhurunews.com/radio/show?show_id=dm

NB: this text is copyrighted, and only limited excerpting with full attribution is permitted. For licensing and reproduction permissions, please contact Norman Otis Richmond at normanotisrichmond@gmail.com.

We have inherited a great music. This music is a holdover. It comes with us like the skin, the texture of our hair. It’s our memory banks.” – Abbey Lincoln.

I have been blessed in many ways to have crossed paths with some of the giants of African history.

Singer/Actress Abbey Lincoln (Aminata Moseka) and drummer Max Roach are two that I have met. Roach, I came to know quite well, and Lincoln to a lesser extent.

Lincoln has now joined the ancestors. It is significant that she passed during the month of August which has come to be known as Black August in many circles. She was born on August 6, 1930 and died on August 14th at the age of 80.

The Chicago-born Lincoln had many names. She was born Anna Marie Wooldridge and was strongly influenced by famed jazz singer Billie Holiday.

She began her singing career in the mid-1950s with “Abbey Lincoln’s Affair – A Story of a Girl in Love” and performed until shortly before her death. Her last album, “Abbey Sings Abbey,” was released in 2007 and featured her own compositions.

Lincoln’s career spanned six decades, during which time she recorded more than 20 albums, wrote her own songs, acted in films and television shows and was a pioneering voice in the Black Power and African Liberation movements.

In the 1970s, Lincoln appeared on several hit television shows, including “All in the Family” and “Marcus Welby, M.D.”

She also appeared in several films, including “Nothing But A Man,” an independent film with Ivan Dixon; “For Love of Ivy” opposite Sidney Poitier in 1968, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe; and Spike Lee’s Mo’ Better Blues.

She sang in the film “The Girl Can’t Help It,” a 1956 Jayne Mansfield vehicle about rock ‘n’ roll.

She once joked about how Max Roach had rescued her from the supper club set.

In “The Girl Can’t Help It” she wore a Marilyn Monroe dress. She took off Monroe’s dress, put on traditional African clothes, and let her natural, nappy hair grow for the world to see.

About her African name, she explained to me that Guinea’s former President Ahmed Sekou Toure gave her the name Aminata.

The Minister of Information of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) named her Moseka. She had traveled to Africa as a guest of Miriam Makeba.

Renowned record executive Nat Hentoff saw Lincoln as the one most passionately committed to African liberation.

He said, “She was very outspoken, very much in front. She had integrity that could cut your head off.”

Lincoln, Roach and Oscar Brown Jr., out of Chicago, collaborated on the groundbreaking album, “We Insist: Freedom Now Suite.”

South Africa’s apartheid government banned this album along with “Uhuru Afrika” by Randy Weston and Lena Horne’s song, “Now.”

The prohibition had made international headlines and was covered in a September 1964 issue of Downbeat magazine.

The recording became a landmark musical statement of the African liberation movement.

Lincoln later said that the political nature of the recording might have hurt her career.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 2007, she said, “We all paid a price, but it was important to say something. It still is.”

Lincoln not only talked the talk, she walked the walk.

She, Maya Angelou and a Trinidadian-African, named Rosa Guy, formed the Cultural Association for Women of African Heritage.

These women took heroic stands on African issues in the United States and aboard.

When Patrice Lumumba, the democratically elected president of the Congo, was assassinated on January 17, 1961, this group went into action.

These women, along with men like Max Roach, disrupted a United Nations meeting after learning that Lumumba had been murdered by Belgian imperialist and their Congolese stooges. This action took place on February 14, 1961.

The Afro-wearing Lincoln also paid tribute to the giant African Nationalist Marcus Mosiah Garvey on a piece called “Garvey’s Ghost.”

Max Stanford (today Muhammad Ahmad), who was a leading member of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), painted a picture of “Garvey’s Ghost” that appeared on the cover of RAM’s theoretical journal, “Black America.”

Ahmad was influenced by Lincoln and Roach. The Philadelphia-born Ahmad pointed out in his volume, We Will Return In The Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations 1960-1975: “The ‘Freedom Now Suite’ immediately raised my political/cultural consciousness.”

He saw the revolutionary couple perform the “The Freedom Now Suite” at a National Association of Colored Peoples convention.

Lincoln worked with a who’s who of the giants of the music, including Coleman Hopkins, Eric Dolphy, Sonny Rollins, Wynton Kelly, Kenny Dorham Booker Little, Archie Shepp, Rodney Kendrick and many of the heavyweights of the music that has come to be called jazz.

Lincoln and Roach fed off each other, creatively. They were married in 1962 and divorced in 1972.

When they both looked back on it, each remembered the other as representing salvation.

Roach said that Lincoln appeared “When I was drinking myself into oblivion.”

Lincoln, on Roach: “My consciousness was opened. Max introduced me to museums and things, because I wasn’t that kind. I didn’t know anything about culture. I was really a simple country girl.”

The great Cassandra Wilson said, “I learned a lot about taking a different path from Abbey. Investing your lyrics with what your life is about in the moment.”

Norman (Otis) Richmond aka Jalali is the producer/host of Saturday Morning Live (SML) formally on CKLN and Radio Regent, and Diasporic Music on Uhuru Radio. Diasporic Music on CKLN every last Thursday 8pm to 10pm http://www.ckln.fm and Diasporic Music on Uhuru Radio can be heard every two weeks on Uhuru Radio. http://uhurunews.com/radio/show?show_id=dm

NB: this text is copyrighted, and only limited excerpting with full attribution is permitted. For licensing and reproduction permissions, please contact Norman Otis Richmond at normanotisrichmond@gmail.com.